Tolerance
by PalaeoPanthalassa
Summary: Sequel to Abnormal. Several weeks have passed since Arkham City was shut down. Clara is trying to return to a normal life, but is finding that this is easier said than done. Meanwhile Killer Croc has been apprehended by the Batman once more. But for how long will he remain contained? *TEMPORARILY ON HIATUS*
_Author's note : I really don't understand how this story got so delayed. I swear I'm like stuck in a time-bubble or something XP_

 _The fact that Croc had been previously frozen and taken in by Commissioner Gordon is referring to the events in the post-Arkham City comics, in which Harley Quinn hired him to guard an old chemical plant still in the ruins of Arkham City - though "hired" here is a loose term, since she paid him with rotten fish and a promise to confront the Batman.  
_

* * *

 **Prologue - _8 weeks after Arkham City was officially closed down..._  
**

Blackgate Penitentiary had seen better days.

At least this was what Dr Gretchen Whistler assumed as she strode down one of its many hallways, noticing the scorch marks still clear upon many of the walls left by a fire that had raged through the facility more than a year and half ago. But oddly enough the place was still in a better state that Arkham Asylum had been, even before its forced closure with the opening of Arkham City.

Shoes clicking steadily upon the faded cracked floor, she searched for signs that she was headed the right way, and these came in more than just placards on the wall. As she got closer towards the cargo lift, Gretchen found she had to be careful where she stepped, a trail of water led down the middle of the corridor, and at one point there were fresh blood stains upon the wall, all of which she knew almost instinctively had been left in the wake of the penitentiary's newest arrival.

It wasn't that Gretchen was an easily frightened woman - after all Dr Whistler had been working in this field of work for over 37 years now, and she was used to being around the deranged and criminally insane - but she would have been lying if she said she wasn't unsettled when she had been alerted short-notice that she was needed to reassess one of her old patients from Arkham Asylum.

Recaptured in the ruins of what had once been Old Gotham, and then Arkham City, Killer Croc's reappearance had been a surprise to everyone - no one had even known that he was still there.  


Two guards awaited her by the cargo lift, an uneasy looking man with a buzz-cut she had never seen before and, to her surprise, Aaron Cash.

"Hello," she greeted them both. "Dr Gretchen Whistler. Mr Cash, I must say that I am surprised to see you working here."

"Likewise, doc," he answered, shaking her hand warmly. "But I'm a long ways off retiring yet. You're here for Croc, right?"

"I have been reassigned to his case," Gretchen answered calmly.  


"It was the Batman," Cash filled her in, already turning towards the main elevator that ran alongside the cargo lift, gesturing for her to step in ahead of him. "But brought in by Commissioner Gordon. He was captured in an old chemical plant, still in Arkham City. You would have thought anyone cooped up in that place would have long since fled when that place was closed down."

"Let's be glad he didn't, or else we would have had a lot of civilian casualties on our hands," interrupted the other guard irritably. "He's been locked up in the basement, in a holding cell normally reserved for storage of goods. He's taking up valuable space, doc. When is the soonest that the board agree that he can be transferred out of here?"

"Blackgate Penitentiary is currently responsible for all of Gotham's criminally minded," Gretchen explained simply. "I understand that there are plans to rebuild Arkham Asylum, but for now there is no where else. Mayor Sharp's campaign to enforce Arkham City for all those institutionalized in psychiatric wards and prisons alike drove out any alternative holding facilities; their funds were cut and their buildings sold off."

"Croc has been held in this facility before," Cash said to the younger guard, sounding slightly amused. "How many years did you say you've worked here, Leo?"

"Hey, you're not the one of the staff who's been assigned to keep him secured, OK?" sputtered the younger guard angrily.

"Yeah, I already had my turn," Cash jokingly shook his hook for emphasis. The young guard wasn't amused, Gretchen intervened before a petty argument could break out.

"Could either of you tell me his current state of mind?" she asked.  


"I haven't seen him yet. Honestly hope I don't have to," Cash said uncomfortably. "But he had been practically frozen solid by the Batman when he arrived here, so you tell me."

"You mean that thing was _seriously_ pissed off," Leo said as they stepped out of the lift. "You would have thought that anyone who had just been frozen would be a bit more docile. But he started coming out of it before we could even get him down to the holding cell. That's what that mess was back there, he threw some orderly into the wall hard enough to crack their skull!"

"I see."

The young guard chewed his lip and looked away, Gretchen knew he wanted to say more but was glad that for his professionalism in that he did not. She could guess what he wanted to say easily enough anyway, she could read it in the tenseness of his shoulders and his rapid exaggerated steps, feigning confidence - he feared for his life, and wanted Croc gone.

"We're here," Leo announced more loudly than necessary as they rounded a corner, ahead of them four armored guards stood either side of the open doorway marked 'Storage Bay 2'.

"Mr Cash, I am not sure it is advisable that you remain within the vicinity while I conduct my interview, it may aggravate him," Gretchen stopped before they could see into the room. "Nor do I believe it would serve you any good."

"Don't worry about me, doc. I'm staying out here," Cash reassured her. "Besides, I've had enough of that animal to last me a life time. I've seen him since the asylum, you know."

"Yes, it's in my notes. You and the medical team assigned at the time reported he came looking for medical supplies. I believe they were given to him?"

"Yeah, one of the docs threw some supplies out of a window to him, but he wasn't happy of course. Wanted more, or something. I have no clue what he was up to. He claimed it was for someone else, but I doubt it. Don't exactly picture Killer Croc as an errand boy."

"I too doubt that Mr Jones would consent to such work. His area of work has always been as hired muscle, or solo endeavors."

"Yeah, I think he either hurt himself or got some dumb idea into his head that he could sell it," replied Cash, then added as an afterthought. "Or get high on it."

"Croc has always been driven by personal motivations, so your theories would make sense Mr Cash, but I need facts. Was he hurt at the time?"

"I can't say that I'd know, doc. He's got a mighty thick hide, and if he was hurt I doubt he would have let it show."

"Thank you, Mr Cash, I will see to him now."

Cash nodded and turned to wait patiently outside the holding cell.

Gretchen finally entered the storage room, the other guard, Leo, following her as far as the doorway where he stopped and looked on uneasily.

The room was large, the walls packed to the ceiling with metal crates, and in the center, chained and beneath a spotlight, was her patient. A table and chair had been haphazardly dragged in and placed in front of him for her convenience, but Waylon Jones himself was not actually sitting on anything.

The manacles around his wrists and ankles had been bolted to the floor, and his electric collar had been refitted once more.  


The scene was rather reminiscent to her of the first time she had interviewed him around 5 years before, when he had been transferred to the asylum after escaping Blackgate for the fourth time in a row. He had many psychological problems, as did most of their patients, but he had been such a way for years. The main reason they had transferred him to the island in the first place had been because they could no longer contain him properly. Croc at the time had been in a terrible mood, and not wanting to be psychologically profiled, had become so violent that they had had to cut the interview short.  


But if Mr Waylon Jones recognized her, he made no immediate move to let her know.

This might have been because he had clearly been heavily sedated. His eyes were unfocused, head sagging forward against his chest and drooling. The drooling was not necessarily a result of the sedative though, seeing as Waylon's condition had long since resulted in his lips having atrophied away.

She set herself down upon the chair and faced him. It was only then that his gaze snapped up to stare intently at her.

"Mr Jones?" she asked firmly but without emotion. "I am Dr Gretchen Whistler, I was your psychiatrist back at the asylum."

"I know who you are," he growled lowly. "Don't think I've forgotten my promise, lady. I never forget a scent, I'm still going to hunt you down..."

"This is just a temporary holding cell," she ignored the death threat without so much as batting an eyelid. "But we will be resuming our sessions for the next month at least. At the time being, Blackgate is our only housing facility for the criminally minded. But I am sure you will see it as an improvement over the ruins of old Gotham."

She waited politely for him to respond, certain that she would receive a choice selection of curses and threats, but to her surprise he only snarled, and it wasn't at her. His gaze had become fixated on the guard that had accompanied her to the door. Gretchen looked back in time just to see the young man hastily looking away, and knew that he had been staring at Croc. She refrained from sighing, wishing, not for the first time, that she could interview Mr Waylon Jones without the entourage of guards. It was hard if not impossible to make any progress when Croc was under the impression that he was being scrutinized by a crowd, but at the same time it was too dangerous for them not to be present.  


"I'm sure you know why you are here, Mr Jones," she started again, trying to reach a neutral ground. "Perhaps you would like to start off by telling me where you have been this last year?"

Croc glared at her, eyes slightly unfocused from the sedatives.  


"Where do ya think, doc?" he snapped irritably. "Arkham City, the old parts of Gotham, no where. Whatever you want to call it."

"I understand you stayed there for well over a year, in Arkham City," she clarified. "We both know you were more than capable of escaping. Why didn't you leave?"

"Why would I?" he snarled, without elaborating; he seemed angry. For as long as she had known him though, Killer Croc had always been angry. He was ruled by his anger, it made him practically impossible to reason with, but at least it made him predictable.

Which was why Gretchen avoided answering his question directly, knowing that it was much a challenge as it was a threat. She tactfully answered with another question.

"My notes inform me that you sought medical aid while in Arkham City," she continued. "Apparently you claimed it was for someone else..."

His eyes - that had been wandering back over to the guards - snapped back to her. She had his full attention, intense and predatory; Gretchen found she had to fight the urge not to push herself away from the desk.

"What happened to them?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," Croc evaded, his chains clinking and creaking as he shifted, the armed guards standing either side of him raised their weapons but the doctor quickly waved them down. "Worked for that miserable midget Penguin for a while, he probably gave me orders. It's not important enough to remember..."  


"Are they in Blackgate as well?" she persisted.

Croc eyed her warily for a just split-second, then his face contorted with rage.

"They're dead," he snapped, then immediately seemed to regret replying.

He fell silent, his anger palpable, Gretchen could practically feel it radiating through the room. Unintentionally, he had given away more information than he had intended, it was a gap in his defenses – and though Gretchen would never call such a gap a weakness in any of her patients, she took her chance knowing that she might not get another.

"What happened to them?" she asked again. She had thought the story was unusual enough when she had first heard it. As far as social went, Croc had little history of so much as tolerating anyone, at least not since before the explosion at the fair ground in Gotham Bay, almost 7 years ago now. The very idea that he might have had a positive form of social interaction was intriguing, and it gave hope to her theory that he wasn't just anger in distorted human form.  


"What do you think happened, doc?" Croc snarled angrily.

"Were they an accomplice of yours?" she probed.

He didn't answer.

She could sense this was dangerous ground, in the way he tensed, shoulders hunched and corners of his mouth twitching into a snarl, but she knew she might not get another chance to ask, so she asked tentatively, cautiously, but like pulling the pin from a grenade:

"A friend?"

"I ate them!" Croc roared. He was livid now, chains and bolts creaked in warning as he thrashed and strained at them. "I ate them! And now they are all gone! Just like you will be when I-"

The room abruptly brightened in an eerie blue glow as a shock, that would have killed any normal human being, made Waylon Jones convulsed as violently as his restraints would allow.

The shock over, he slumped forwards once again, breath coming out in heavy painful rasps but somehow he still had the strength to raise his head and glare at the perpetrator. The guard in question hastily took a step back.  


"You scared of me?" crackling laughter and malice in his voice, he asked the guard who had shocked him. "Want to shoot me? Don't blame you, coz, if I _wasn't_ tied up you wouldn't be alive..."

"This is what I was talking about!" the young man yelled defensively as Gretchen looked back at him with irritation, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "We can't hold him here! This monster needs to be moved!"

"This is a psychiatric case. It is not professional, or advisable, to take anything these patients say personally," she answered sharply, ignoring Croc's snarling. "But I think that was enough for today. Mr Waylon Jones, I will be seeing you again in two days time, but in the meantime please for your own sake, don't give these guards a reason to shock you. It doesn't help anyone."

"Like they need a reason," Croc growled.

* * *

 _A/N: So finally it is here! I wanted to post this like back in January.  
_

 _I've finished the DLC, finally Killer Croc appeared!_ _And...I admittedly didn't like his new design at first (and I still don't really), but then they explained why he looked like that...it was so sad ;(_ _And if I'm to stick to cannon,_ _I'm going to have to deal with that later. But for now Croc looks as he did in Arkham City._ _  
_

 _Another reason this chapter was posted so much later than intended was because I had to rewrite the scene at the end with Croc. Originally I had Croc being all quiet, ignoring Gretchen completely but making a game of scaring the guards at the door, and then later even deliberately goading a guard into electrocuting him - reading over this I realized this was very out of character for him, and was more like the behavior of the Joker, so I had to change it._

 _Does anyone think I should do chapter summaries at the end of each chapter like I did with 'Abnormal'? I can't remember why I did them in the first place, but if anyone thinks they are convenient, just say so and I will do the same for this story._


End file.
